Think the United States can't afford decent health care for everyone? The truth is, we can't afford not to reform an inadequate, unequal system.And we are already paying – plenty.

Think the United States can't afford decent health care for everyone? The truth is, we can't afford not to reform an inadequate, unequal system.And we are already paying – plenty.According to a recent study sponsored by the consumer group Families USA, which advocates better health coverage for everyone, the average insured American family pays a “hidden health tax” of more than $1,000 per year. That’s because hospitals and other providers shift the cost of providing uncompensated care onto insured patients.That figure doesn’t even include what we pay in taxes to support Medicare and Medicaid. Those two federal programs combined account for more than 60 percent of net revenue at New Hanover Regional Medical Center. At smaller rural hospitals, that percentage may be even greater. Then there are government employees and military veterans, whose care we also subsidize through our taxes.Yes, we’re spending a bundle, all right, but what do we have to show for it? A disjointed, vastly unequal system in which those with good insurance or deep pockets can see a doctor or undergo an expensive necessary procedure without going into deep debt, but in which 46 million people have no insurance at all and still others have policies that cover only a portion of the cost of catastrophic illnesses or accidents.Because our system is one of haves and have-nots, everyone pays more for the care they need. This is a system that needs fundamental change.A majority of Americans agree, but the problem is finding a system that works, that does not deny or “ration” care and most of all, that does not break the Treasury. So far, Congress – yes, we must put what faith we can in that body of 535 partisan career politicians – has not come up with the answer.While House Democrats have introduced a plan that offers sound improvements, it would be tremendously expensive. Republicans also have problems with sections that would tax people with high incomes, require employers either to offer health care insurance or pay a fee into a public plan and would expand government-sponsored health care.Yet it offers a starting point for a necessary discussion. President Obama set an artificial deadline that cannot be met. Let’s do it right. The president has pledged that any plan he approves must contain costs but provide basic health care coverage for all Americans. That’s a tall order that must be taken with a grain of salt, coming from a politician and all.But we can do it. Other nations have managed to provide health care to all their citizens. There’s a lot of chatter about long waits for procedures in Britain and Canada, but many experts point to two unlikely places – France and Italy – as better examples of systems that work.Our system doesn’t have to “be” any of those. But it must involve a partnership of all stakeholders, private and public – employers, individuals, the government, providers, drug companies and insurers. Otherwise we’ll continue to see more Americans become uninsured while health care costs continue to rise.No, this will not be easy, particularly when there are partisans on both sides of the political aisle who refuse to consider that the other side might have a good point. A glimmer of hope may lie with six senators – three Democrats and three Republicans – who have been working diligently to come up with a compromise that can help move the nation toward a better system of health care and health insurance.This group isn’t likely to embrace anything that comes close to the politically charged term “socialized medicine,” and its members already have balked at the $1 trillion cost tied to the House Democrats’ proposal. It is very likely that whatever compromise emerges will be imperfect and incomplete.Still, small steps forward are better than standing in place.

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